Today, several network control systems configure software forwarding elements executing on host computers to create logical forwarding elements that span multiple host computers. Such logical forwarding elements allow multiple isolated logical networks to be created on a shared physical network infrastructure. In recent years, some network control systems have been adapted to configure hardware forwarding elements, such as top of the rack (TOR) switches. In many such cases, the TORs have configuration databases that are defined according to the hardware VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint) schema. Network controllers of such network control systems communicate with such TOR configuration databases using the OVSdb protocol. The OVSdb protocol and hardware VTEP schema are defined by the Open vSwitch organization.
The hardware VTEP schema defines various tables to exchange control plane information between a controller and a TOR. However, neither this schema nor the OVSdb protocol require the controllers to use transactional controls in communicating with the TORs. As such, on receiving a portion of a configuration from a controller, the TOR might start modifying its data plane operation. This may cause problems as the received configuration data portion might provide a view of the logical network that is incomplete and in some cases, inconsistent with either an earlier logical network view upon which the TOR previously based its data plane operation, or with the current logical network view that the controller is trying to push to the TOR. Therefore, there is a need in the art for transactional controls for the network controllers to use to allow TORs to update their data plane operations based on complete control plane views of the logical networks.